


Parents

by navaan



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Adopted Children, Comic Book Science, Established Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Family Fluff, Fluff, Happy, Kid Fic, M/M, Two Fathers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-02-28 22:58:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13281672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: A baby is found in an AIM lab and Tony takes to the task of being a father like he's never done anything else. Steve is amazed and in love.





	Parents

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laire (laireshi)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/gifts).



Carol only gives him one short look and then they're both silently staring at the child. The baby is lying in the crib, with puffy cheeks and tears still wetting its tiny cheeks, but now it's gnawing at its little fist and just staring up at them, as if it knows that the Avengers are here to help – as if it has any idea what's going on here. It doesn't, of course. And Steve can't say that _he_ does. And he needs to stop thinking of the tiny human being as “it”. Because this is a child. A child they've found in a _lab_ and Steve's already seeing the magnitude of the responsibility that is crashing down on him like the unstoppable waves of a giant tsunami. 

He didn't sign up for this, but there are just things you don't run from.

This is a baby. And he's seen whose genetic make-up went into “creating” it.

“Does...?” He struggles with trying to come up with a neutral way to ask and finally clears his throat twice to give himself the time to actually form a sentence that makes sense. “Did they name the baby?”

Startled, Carol looks up. “Name?”

“They were keeping...” He nearly says “it” again and settles on “the baby” instead. “They were keeping the baby in a crib in a room that looks like a nursery. They must have called...” He stops, face blanching. 

The baby seems to sense his discomfort and looks up at him with _startling_ blue eyes. _Familiar_ blue eyes. 

“I don't know,” Carol says. “This is AIM we're talking about. They're the kind of guys who think MODOK is a name, aren't they?”

He wants huff and roll his eyes and just leave this to someone else, but the child has other ideas: It makes an unhappy, hitching sound and then starts bawling. The high pitched screams hit him with the force of lightning and he's just _struck_ immobile. Captain America finds himself made useless by the flow of tears. He's never been good with babies. 

And what will Tony say when he gets here and finds out about it?

“Can you...?” he starts asking Carol and she looks at the baby and back at him and decisively says: “No.”

The screaming doesn't let up one bit and he steps closer to the crib, but the frail body, the tears, the volume of the screams – it just serves to make him terribly uncomfortable.

“Has someone told Tony?” he asks and his hand is on the side of the crib, and he's probably grimacing – or at the very least his face must look like it does when he goes to battle the Red Skull, and for the fraction of a second he considers just turning around and leaving. But _he can't_ leave a defenseless child, much less so one that has Tony's eyes.

“Has someone told Tony what exactly?” someone asks from the door.

It's Tony, his voice calm despite the terrible screaming.

Carol looks up at him like she's relieved and then looks at Steve with the patented tell-him-or-I-will look she's using a lot on both of them. Steve turns, feeling like the whole world has shifted suddenly, because how does anyone deal with this? How did you tell your partner that...? How? When you haven't had the time yet to process it?

He opens his mouth and closes it again. There's just no good way to break the news that they're parents now.

Tony's standing in the door, helmet off, but armor on and he's taking in the room as if there is no screaming baby. He's assessing the situation. And suddenly Steve is very aware that there's two sets of the same very intense blue gaze set on him and the baby is still screaming – and Tony moves.

He just moves.

Steve has no time to process that either.

But the armor just bleeds away, back into Tony's bones – and _that_ thought also makes him slightly queasy – and the man appears from the armor, rumpled t-shirt, over long sleeved white shirt, and the next moment he has a screeching child in his arms that has _his_ eyes and Steve's dimples.

“Hey there, hey there,” Tony mutters. “What are you screaming about, huh? Not everyone gets to see Captain America all flustered. That's not something to be sad about, right? See? I find it charming when he looks like he's a bit overwhelmed. See?” 

He holds the baby up a little and then Tony _coos_.

And Steve stares. 

There's nothing else he can do in that moment, because he has no idea what's even going on here.

“So, do you have a name?” Tony coos and the baby, still crying turns up and into his shoulder, like _that's_ what it's been waiting for, and Tony weighs it in his arms like he's never done anything else in his life.

Steve is floored. “What are you...?” _Doing?_ he thinks he wants to ask, but he sees the moment when Tony turns slightly inward and is gone. It still makes him uncomfortable, it still scares him a little, whenever there are the glimpses of Extremis, whenever Tony shows how much he has changed himself, how much he's able to do just interfacing with his armor systems like this. 

Then Tony's mind is back from the data stream and he looks at Steve, and Steve's waiting for the moment of freaked out realization that he's going through. Because he knows so much about Tony and Tony's family history, he would be just as nervous as Steve to discover...

The panicked moment doesn't come.

Tony _smiles_.

He _smiles_ , bright and with his whole face – and that has become so rare, so damn rare, that Steve's breath catches in his throat. 

“We're parents,” he tells Steve as if it's the most wonderful thing in the world and Steve thinks he's ready to ask someone to check him over for head injuries, when Tony kisses the baby on the top of its head with the fluffy, surprisingly dark strands of hair. And he speaks the words that Steve had struggled with so easily as if that's something he's been waiting for.

Steve can't make himself unfreeze, because he's stuck between too many emotions all at once, and one of them is his heart overflowing with the warmest possible love. Because the baby is calming and Tony is happy. “Yes,” he says faintly and watches Tony's hands bounce the baby when hiccups herald a new eruption of screaming and the baby calms down easily, plants a little hand in Tony's beard right at his chin and pulls tightly.

The baby giggles and Tony chuckles as if he hasn't even noticed.

And Steve, for the first time since he's seen the genetic material that led to the conception of this little kid in Tony's arms, allows himself a simple thought: _It's going to be okay. We're parents. We can do this._

He isn't so sure about himself, but Tony seems to have this all figured out. Or maybe he hasn't. But he's Iron Man, he probably will figure it out as soon as he gets the chance. 

And suddenly the panicked fear of having this dropped on him leaves Steve. There's nothing he can't face with Tony at his side.

* * *

There's nothing he can't face with Tony at his side, he thinks, right up until they're back home and Tony starts taking the apartment apart and then rebuilding it. He leaves little Boo, as Tony started calling the little boy that has both their DNA, lying in a carrier that now sits by Steve's side. For the moment the little one is asleep. Steve isn't done feeling overwhelmed and out of his depths. The feeling crushes over him every time he looks down at the baby.

And for some reason Tony is just the opposite. Tony is overwhelmed by love and he wants everything perfect for the little boy right now.

“We can't go on, calling him Boo,” Steve says, when Tony picks up their _son_ to put him in his new bed.

Then it hits him.

He's a father. _They're parents._ Steve had only recently wrapped his head around being in love and building a relationship with Tony – after a decade of circling each other as something slightly closer than friends. And it's amazing.

So far it has all just fallen into place.

And Tony is holding the baby with such a sure, gentle grip that it just dazzles him.

It's mind-boggling and unexpected and oh so sweet: The soft smile, the calm, the way Tony just seems to relax into this like he never wanted to be anything but caretaker to a small, occasionally screaming bundle of squirming human being. Steve held the little guy once so far and then he was sure he'd break him, but Tony just holds him with so much gentle surety. Steve wants to learn that. 

“I didn't even know...” He isn't even sure what he's trying to say and his throat goes dry, because Tony is kissing the top of the babies head again and suddenly he's lost.

When their eyes meet it's like Tony can see right to his core. “You're okay with this? I thought you'd be the type who'd want a family.”

“Yes!” he blurts out and startles all three of them. The baby wakes, drowsy and squirming in Tony's arms. Their little son. “Yes, I want this and... he's ours anyway, whatever AIM thinks they were doing, he's ours. I just – This is moving so fast.”

For the first time since he picked up the little boy in the AIM nursery, Tony looks uncertain. “I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing here.”

He doesn't look like he's as out of his depth as Steve is feeling right now.

The baby mewls. 

“Yes,” Steve says, “you do.”

“I didn't know I wanted... It never seemed like a good time and...”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “My father wasn't exactly a role model... We can be, right? Good parents?”

The baby fully opens his eyes and looks at Steve first, eyes widening, Then he sees Tony and squeals with the honest delight of the innocent. Tony grins down at him. “Hi, Boo,” he coos. “It's just daddy and daddy having a world shaking conversation. You'll get used to it. We do this a lot.”

“He needs a name,” Steve says and watches, still awed at how these hands that build machines, create tools, form and protect the future with crafty engineering and sometimes with heavy hitting armor moves, can hold a frail child with gentle strength that Steve still thinks he hasn't in him. 

But he'll learn.

“Any ideas?” Tony asks.

“Anthony?” he suggests.

“That's not very original. What do you think, Steve Jr.?”

The baby sneezes. 

“Aha,” Tony says handling their son with all possible care, while he walks over to where Steve is. “We're in agreement. We need better suggestions.”

“Okay,” he agrees. 

Then Tony holds up their son and the little guy kicks the air and grins at Steve toothlessly. It's perfect. 

Steve has to laugh and while Tony folds his arms and holds the nervous baby against his chest, explaining that babies need the closeness and touching and that Steve better get over whatever is holding him back, Steve does what he does best: He makes a decision. 

He carefully embraces Tony and leans his chin on his shoulder to look at their little miracle baby, then presses a kiss against Tony's cheek. “Okay,” he says. “I'm in. There's nothing I can't do with you.”

Tony leans back into him. “Okay,” he says back softly. “I hope you still believe it, when he keeps us up all night.”

Right now sleepy little Boo is yawning and slipping back into slumber, as Tony hums and mumbles and sways with him softly. He's so good at it that it makes Steve's heart ache. Steve very carefully brushes a hand over the little soft downy hair on the small head and hums a non-song with Tony.

This morning none of this would have seemed likely or possible.

“He already loves you,” Steve whispered.

“You think so?” Tony asks back and his eyes widen a little and his cheeks get rosy with excitement and there is that especially happy smile again.

Steve loves it.

He has decided he loves all about _this_ and tightens his embrace, before kissing Tony.

“How could he not?” Steve whispered. “I do.” 

“Next time the team calls us mum and dad, at least there'll be something to it,” Tony whispers.

“There always was _something_ to it,” he whispers back, suddenly sure that things are falling into place again. They'll figure this out, step by step, with smiles on their faces.

Tony's face mirrors his conviction.

That's all he needs.


End file.
